Better way to organize Instant Queue?

[Kris SF]

Surely Netflix can come up with a better way to organize and view one's Instant Queue while accessing it through the Roku or other player.  I have over 250 titles in my Instant Queue and it is very tiresome to have to scroll through them one by one to try and find what's there.  Sure, I suppose I could sort them by category or in alphabetical order through the website but I have to believe there is a better way to make it work.  I can't be the only one who has a long instant queue.

[Spindaddydad]

Wouldn't that be left up to the manufacturers of the devices?

[alpha309]

or if you hit the next chapter button it skips ahead 10-15 movies or so. at least it does on the Xbox.

And 250 is nothing

[Kris SF]

whether 250 is nothing or not isn't really the point; it is a lot to scroll through on the Roku box. I've not seen what the interface is with any other devices. There doesn't seem to be a way to jump by 5 or 10 or even by "page". I don't know whether it is up to the manufacturers of the devices or not. Who creates the interfaces? Given that the content is downloaded from Netflix, I presumed (perhaps incorrectly) that they had some control over it.

[Spindaddydad]

The interface is different for each device, so safe to assume the manufacturers design their own interface.

[alpha309]

which remote do you have. From my understanding there are several different kinds. Most, if not all have a skip chapter button. I would try that. I really don't know the answer, just trying to suggest a possible solution.

The Xbox has all the box art side by side in one long line. I had assumed the Roku was the same way based on pictures that I had seen. I can't really suggest anything else, and I am not going to waste my time researching the topic because it does nothing for me. I am not that much of a good neighbor.

[janlyn]

I am a little frustrated by the lack of any kind of organization of my instant queue too. I keep nearly 500 movies in the queue. This morning I viewed the queue online and bumped all movies with 4 stars to the top. Other than that, I try to keep like genre together. I am hoping roku will come up with a way that we can place our movies in folders, or something like that. One thing Netflix could do would be to enable its members to arrange movies in the queue, either by rating or alphabet, at the click of the mouse.

The Roku interface is a bit cheesy and dated looking but I love my roku anyway. The xbox instant queue interface is more pleasing to the eye and much smoother to navigate but I don't have an xbox.

[Craig in NJ]

Needed: Folders within Instant Watching queue.

When will Netflix product management wake up and realize that the online paradigm is different than the mailed-disc paradigm: a single linear queue doesn't make sense! Online a person can watch any movie in their entire queue rather than just the one at the top of the list, so a sequentially-ordered list makes no sense. Since there's many more selections I'd be willing to watch online than on disc, my Instant Watching queue is approaching 250 entries and it's unmanagable!

The obvious solution for managing a large assortment of selections is to support user-named folders within the Instant queue. For example, I'd have ones named things like "Drama", "Foreign (Asian)", "SciFi", "Old TV & Movies", "Exercise", "Girlfriend's Picks", "Guest's Picks", etc. This could also be useful for parents who want to have a folder for each of their kids (maybe even with different MPAA rating restrictions???).

Then, when I use my Roku Player and navigate into the Netflix channel (or when visiting my Queue on the web site), it'd show me my folders followed by any top-level queue selections, and I could drill down into one of those folders if I wanted.

Thanks,

Craig in NJ

PS -- I wanted to add this to the "Instant Watching" category, but the Add Discussion tool won't let me pick that.

[Kris SF]

that is an excellent suggestion, Craig. Folders would help. After all, Amazon has folders (that they created, I have to say) for their streaming video service on Roku, so why not Netflix? I've not seen the Xbox interface, but nearly anything would be an improvement!

[deb4nier]

How about a simple one-click alphabetize option for the Instant Queue.

[Knaldskalle]

If you use the Firefox browser with the Greasemonkey extension, you can install this script, which allows you to sort your queue to pretty much your heart's content.

[Kris SF]

I'm not looking for a way to easily organize the queue on the computer. I'm looking for a way to easily organize and sort them (and find the film I want) on the Roku box, on the telly, which is where it is so cumbersome. I use a few different apps on my iPhone to organize as well as through Netflix's website, but it is the telly interface, at least through the Roku box, that is so cumbersome.

But I'm sure your suggestion of the add on to Firefox will be of interest to others as well.

[Spindaddydad]

I'm pretty sure that that would be a Roku interface issue (not NF) that would be independent of whether or not they were organized by folders in the NF queue.